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The Death of Sleep
Magnaron Millions of years ago, Magnaron was the biggest intersection on Cybertron, which gave it serious strategic value, and because of that, nowhere else on Cybertron has seen so much fighting. Over the years, Magnaron was transformed from an intersection into a blast crater, a lake of toxic waste, a deep abyss from one of Unicron's pincers, and a lake full of Quintessa's water, a memento of the Quintessons' attempt to retake Cybertron. This, its latest incarnation, is the result of the structural stresses of the recent move to the Alpha Centauri system. The abyss, the lake, are no more, sealed by the compression of the crust. Instead, a huge but shallow depression marks the location of some of the fiercest conflicts on Cybertron. Overhead, bloody-hued Mia hangs in the starlit night sky like an ominous portent of violence to come. Contents: Skids Shockwave Grapple Ford Benett Velum Mysterious Attack Copter Obvious exits: North leads to Northern Highway. South leads to Southern Highway. East leads to New Cybertron Highway . West leads to Old Maintenance Center. Fly Back on January 2, in the Year of the Brick (every year is the year of the Brick - it gets pretty confusing), someone's igloo tragically caught on fire. It wasn't that big a deal - most of the flames were promptly confiscated by people building hot rods. Only they did not confiscate all the flames. They missed some. Now wildfires have been popping up all over the countryside, and there aren't enough cooking fires, hot rods, rockets, and secret bases of doom to /use/ all these fire pieces. It's starting to get almost dangerous. Fever pitch. Trivia, thoroughly generic Autobot, works at one of the firelines, digging ditches and filling them with clear blue tiles so as to create mini-moats to slow the spread of the fire. He moans, "I'm burning up in here," because while Autobots can lava-surf, wildfires give them fits (except for Hot Spot). Just go with it. Grapple is, at the core of cores, a builder. Always had been, always will be. When a problem arises, what's the cure? BUILDING. So, when the wildfires began raging, Grapple was not at the front lines of controlling it, but building more and more places to PUT all the fires. Fireplaces in peoples' homes, backyard furnaces, a few completely useless firepits... There had to be places for all of this fire. There simply had to be. At the moment, he was even digging a firepit in his own back yard, piling one and two bit dirt pieces in a nearby pile as he went. Repugnus has arrived. Ford's front as a Kreoica game board player was all a guise, in honesty. He's been busy cleaning up messes as stuff for a certain someone, but nobody really knows who that is. Possibly not even Ford knows! Ford's eyesight is back in the dreamworld, in spite of his laying in a medbay bed without cybernetic eyes. He looked so much more handsome without a bandage covering half his face. In this instance, Ford isn't exactly equipped for putting out wildfire bricks. But stopping the spread is something he can do! Armed with twin daggers at his side, a bow w/ a quiver full of arrows on his back and a cape flowing freely (somehow) from around his neck, Ford runs through the blocky forests, slashing trees away and creating a wall of no-trees as he goes. But... he seems to have gotten stuck amidst the blazing bricks. "Erm... you know, I /really/ should've brought an extra hand or 3 for this task..." he mused, trying to find a way through the blazes. 345,628 astroseconds ago, Shockwave and Buzzkill disassembled four Decepticon warriors and hooked their brains up to a cortical deep-reader to scan their unwaking thoughts. It was then that the extent of this dreaming malfunction became apparent to them. The Kre-O world was revealed to the Decepticons, and Shockwave knew how to exploit this. The administrator of this disaster was obvious, and he would be the target. 144,186 astroseconds ago, Shockwave and Buzzkill discovered how to enter the Kre-O dreamscape without triggering their subconscious to take over. The Decepticons could enter while retaining their normal memories and personalities. Now, Shockwave, Spinister, and a squadron of Decepticons have entered the dreamscape not far from our heroes. Their objective was not frolicking in the countryside or building nonsense machines like those trapped here, but rather to enslave the dreamers, rip their bricky brains apart, and pry every last secret from their minds. Kreon Shockwave steps forward, turning his head towards the assembled Decepticons. "Remember the altered laws of physics in this world," he declares, "Recall that unfreed Decepticons will not recognize our authority. Above all, remember that though this world is no more real than a passing thought, it can still hold the key to our victory." Carnivac has arrived. Well, the fire pit was just about done, but now he had to test it. And the best way to test a fire pit is to throw fire pieces in it, of course! So, Grapple climbed himself out, tossing a few extra dirt pieces to the pile as he did so -- bricks were bricks, and dirt bricks could be used later! -- before heading to the wildfires roaring not too many steps away. When he gets there, he sees... Someone surrounded in the fire! Oh no! A hook piece is attached to his hose arm to tear some fire pieces free! And what better way to ruin someone's happy brick building dreams than to let in an amoral sociopathic bully? Or at least, that's the reason one would presume that someone as logical and proficient as Shockwave would opt to bring along someone like Carnivac. Fortunately dropping down on all fours and clamping shut a cowl piece to make a wolf head wasn't too different from how he really transformed, so the blockiness of it all didn't hamper the lupine warrior all that much. That said wolf head piece was permanently stuck in a fanged grin is.. actually, that's just authentic recreation. "Mindrape is so much more fun when you're actually there in person~" Hoo boy. Carnivac drops to all fours, turning into a mechanical wolf. Trivia happens to notice Ford getting stuck, and so he promptly builds Ford some WATER ARROWS so that Ford can defend himself. He throws the quiver of WATER ARROWS to Ford, and he shouts, "This is worse than the Bohrok Crisis!" Ford snatched the WATER ARROWS Trivia had thrown him as he smirked, putting them all in the quiver save for one. He knocked the arrow into it's place on his bow as he fired it, cutting himself at the same time that someone else is handily lending him a hand escaping the burning bricks. Leaping dexteriously through the fires, Ford lands a short hop between the two aids. "Thanks.... not that I couldn't have handled that on my own, but it was a help." Ford liked being a dream minifig: he got to keep his devilishly good looks from the real world, but also gained the profession of a blindingly fast stealth knight from all his grinding. Not that he knew he had a different reality persona, but... in the waking world, he rather missed his occupation. "I've cleared a line of trees on the far side. If we can't put them out here, it'll at least keep from spreading... waste of good blocks though..." Upon arriving in the dreamscape, Shockwave quickly discovered his arm cannon, though present on his Kreon self, didn't do anything beyond light up and make fake laser sounds. Fortunately, by applying the rules of this world, he was able to fashion a shoulder bazooka that fires 1x1 circular Kre-O pieces as needed. There was no logical reason the weapon should work other than because logic runs on a different formula here. Nor is there any reason these 'wildfires' should act in such an unnatural manner. "Fun is irrelevant, Carnivac. Success is the only thing of importance." Inwardly, though, a part of Shockwave agrees with the sentiment. What a farce, he thinks as he leads his troopers over the crest of a hill towards where Grapple, Trivia, and Ford are somewhat working against the wildfires. Beyond Carnivac, there's also a dozen dark purple Kreon Seekers with Shockwave. Shockwave motions for them to stop not far from our heroes. "Carnivac," he gestures with his gun arm, "Make our intentions known." Upon seeing Trivia and Ford, he adds, "Inform them that there are greater dangers here than mere fake fire." The only thing Grapple really got out of helping Ford, it seems, was a slightly burned hose arm and hook. A bricky architect frowns a little sadly at the burns; builders did not make good firemen. "Keeping the fire contained to protect all the bricks is worth a few sacrifices. Sadly." Oh, how he hates wasting blocks! "Can I help?" Of course it's irrelivant. It's Carnivac that said it. And yet at the same time, fitting. Logic could translate and extrapulate what the dreamscapes showed, but could the reliance of knowledge rather than emotion really understand what those investigations revealed? But none of that mattered either. "Thought you would never ask." With a manic cackle Carnivac loped over the crest of the hill and onto the opposite slope. Then stopped. "HEY, BLOCKHEADS!" Snickers a moment at his own bad joke. "Why ya wasting your time dicking around with those little plastic fires and pieces? Lemme show you how to think outside the blocks!" Then trails off into a manic laugh as he transforms. Except by transform we mean exherting the control 'knowing' its a dream gives one with the right (wrong?) mentality to exploit it, warping the KRE-O reality and 'logic' beneath demented whimsy. Bricks and pieces gather up around Carnivac and lock together, hinged pieces forming the joints for limbs, panels and cones becoming armor plates and spikes, angles and slopes clicking together in the shape of a massive wolf's head, made of blocks, grinning as madly as ever. Shit, looks like 'Pretender Shell' translated into 'Bigger Constructed Body' in Kreo-dom. It's also turned his cannon into one of those spring-pressure launchers, which is promptly fired into the nearest pile of bricks to send them scattering. "I am the madman, welcome to my playground!" Carnivac is sealed within his Pretender shell, becoming a giant biomechanical wolf. Trivia does not immediately register the Decepticons as threats, because, well, at worst, DeceptiKREONS tend to be annoying pranksters. Some of them are upstanding citizens. So Trivia is a bit slow on the uptake to react to Carnivac's obviously threatening and menacing posturing, which would really terrifying anyone in his right mind. He warns, "There is a wildfire out of control here! You had better be careful!" Maybe Ford or Grapple will have slightly more common sense. Grapple takes a moment from moping over his burned limbs to look up at Carnivac. He blinks. Once. Twice. He opens his mouth to say something, but then the launchers go off and blow apart some bricks. Now he's blinking a little more rapidly, but doesn't quite seem to know what to do. After a few seconds, he starts shuffling away from Carnivac. Ford turned back from the wildfires to see Carnivac on the hill transforming as he did, turning into something quite threatening to look at. "...hey, you two. I think he might be right. This guy looks like a bigger problem than those wildfires..." Ford drew both his daggers from his sides as he eyed the giant wolf over the ridge. Suddenly, a little blocky lightbulb popped up over his head, before turning back to Grapple. "Think... outside the blocks... outside the... Listen, you two! I don't know good at building you are, but these blocks! Listen! We need a vacuum of some kind! Something that we can use to suck up the fire! Can you two make that while I keep him busy!?" Skids transforms into his Blue compact minivan mode. Grapple gives Ford a blank stare. As in, his blocky painted-on eyes actually turn in to near impossible-to-see dots. "..A... Vacuum? Out of dirt blocks?!" He looks back to the pile of dirt blocks tossed about. "...How?!" The Autoblock minivan rides up, kicks open its hatchback, and pops out some white-block marshmellows, mounted on thin little rods for roasting. It hops up on its tires cartoonishly and spins in the air, landing on his feet as the blocky little Tracks. "Anybody want some?" As the Pretender goes down to start yelling at the idiots still suffering from the dreamscape's delusions, Shockwave turns to the Seekers, adorable optic flashing. "Assemble the machine." The Deceptikreons salute. Each of them pulls one or two Kre-O bricks out from behind their backs and begin clicking them together. Most of the pieces are either purple or silver, so it's clear even before it takes shape that this thing is going to be evil. The end result is a huge hexagon ring on the ground, somewhat similar to an old style spacebridge 'doughnut'. The chief difference, beyond colour and exact shape, is that each corner of the hexagon has a little Kre-O piece that looks like it could plug into anyone's head socket. That is also not a good sign. "Fine, than make a giant body of some kind! A dirt golem, I don't care! I'll do the rest, but I need something big that we can smash in this thing's face! Heck, even a big stick will do!" Ford quipped back to poor Grapple, before snarling confidently back at Carnivac, pointing a dagger his direction. "Alright, doggie, let's play!" Trivia taps his chin and replies, "I think I can do that. Like a... giant... sucking... machine, like a... MegaMaid." he starts to piece dirt bricks and fire pieces together, like an uncannily good weaponsmith... maybe not as forgettable as he appears to be? A dirt golem? A giant body? Well, THAT was something that could be done! With a new building task at hand, Grapple is ready and willing! ...So, he starts grabbing dirt blocks tossed about by the earlier blast and piles them together... Stacking them together, building, piling...! ... Well, it's something. Looks like a giant dirt snowman, except without the snow. Combat: Created Weapon design #11. Blue compact minivan, with his amazing powers of observation, notices the giant ring and asks, "Is that a bonfire?" He takes a couple of steps toward the Deceptikreons, waves his arms, and yells, "Hey, are you making a bonfire?" Blue compact minivan transforms into his Skids mode. There was something befitting about a epic fantasy style Kreoica man staring down a monsterous sized wolf made out of blocks that was several times his size. And it's not lost on Carnivac either. "Aaaw, how cute. Think's he's the mighty hero." With a decidedly not stable cackle the little LED lights that make the beast's eyes flash. "Normally I don't play with my food, nyehehehe, but for you I'll make an exception!" Carnivac swats at Ford with the blocky lump with hook shaped pegs sticking out of them for claws that makes up one of his paws. With the Kre-O cortical deep-reader constructed, Shockwave turns to see how Carnivac is doing. The Pretender seems to be having problems getting respect from the Kreons, but Shockwave doesn't hold this against him. Everyone here except for the Decepticons are brainwashed by the device. They don't even realize the danger they're in... well, the hypothetical danger, that is. Shockwave thus steps down the hill to meet with Skids, still carrying his Kre-O bazooka over his shoulder. Sadly, Kreon Shockwave doesn't have his imposing height with which to tower over Skids like he would in the real world. Thus, Shockwave must instead rely on his strength. His claw-like hand snaps out, trying to snag Skids's neck and lift him off the ground. "No. You are in error," Shockwave's optic flashes. Skids' head-block pops off, and his body gets down in its hands and knees to grope around for it. "Over here! Oh, I can't hear me anyway," his head grouses, before his body finds it, picks it up, puts it back on, and spins it around to face the right way. He holds up a finger. "That wasn't very nice, but I'll give you one more chance. So, that's not a bonfire? Is it a yurt, then? And, want to roast some mashmellows anyway?" Grapple builds a pretty decent dirt-man in a few short minutes. It's big! It's made of dirt bricks! It's... Not on fire, which is better than most of the forest right now. Grapple turns to inform his new friends of the finished dirtman, but catches sight of the street not too far away and... "Shockwave?" A happy grin crosses his face; one of his best Kreon-ry friends! He practically toddles to the street. "Shockwave!" Skids warns, "Make sure your head's firmly attached. He's a real galoot." Skids pats Shockwave on the Prussian blue shoulder-block. "Aw, just joshin' ya. No hard feelings, right?" Ford's daggers come up to deflect the claw swipe with a loud *SHING!*, skidding back as he looked back to the dirt block snowman and the vacuum Grapple and Trivia were building respectively. "...well, it'll do!" Ford replied, leaping backwards at the foot of the dirtman, before climbing up to it's head and sitting atop it. Digging his blocky hands into it's head, the dirt golem the behemoth suddenly sprang to life, moving it's arms about to test them. Clenching his new giant hands, Ford smirked at Carnivac. "Hardly the greatest ride, but it's easy to repair, at least!" Drawing back, Ford lifted a giant dirty hand to swat back at huge wolf. Trivia goes around vacuuming up fire. Vroom vroom. But then there's Ford fighting Carnivac and Shockwave fighting Skids. Something tugs at the back of his mind, and he mumbles, "I... think I left something back home." He lets the vacuum go to continue vacuuming up fire on its own, which it does autonomously. Then he grabs a branch off a tree, inverts it to form a broom, and he flies off on his broom to... go get something. Shockwave stares at Skids as he merely finds and reattaches his head and his body. The Decepticon Military Commander focuses on the end picture: winning this war, no matter the indignities of suffering through this world. If grabbing Skids isn't going to work, maybe preying on the Autobot's artificially induced stupidity might work instead. "Come here," he says, turning and stepping back towards the huge, menacing device that is most certainly not a bonfire. He makes it half way when he hears Grapple. Ah. Shockwave is well aware of what his alter-ego did prior to Shockwave discovering this place. It irks him. Glancing over his shoulder, he says, "Grapple, follow me." The Seekers hang out by the machine, ready to grab anyone dumb enough to come up here to it. Grapple seems all too happy to do just that. He still looks incredibly delighted, toddling along as if he is the happiest Kreon in Kreocity. "I finished it, Shockwave! I finished the machine! It's incredible, I can't wait for you to see it...!" Skids waits for Grapple to get there, then walks up together. "Circus tent? Grain silo? Observatory?" Carnivac cocks his head to the side for a moment as Ford climbs up the thing, idly shaking off his paw. Those little daggers didn't hurt, but they're sharp. Sharp plastic like that wouldn't even be allowed past quality control in the real world!... Oh, wait, that's why his own claws are actually sharp too. Nevermind. This straying in thought is snapped out of when a dirt-block fist whomps him upside the head and the big bad block-wolf staggers for a moment. "Aahahaha. Nice trick. But you still don't realize what you're really in, do you? Shame, really. Too many happy thoughts obscuring the bitter realities." Thankfully, his mouth is actually hinged, allowing him to chomp down on the offending arm!... except if this is a world made of plastic, why are his teeth suddenly digging in like -real teeth-? And really, Skids might say if anyone asked him, who would want to live in a world where friendliness is stupid? Now that, that's crazy. "Hey, you guys might not wanna go with him! That thing looks really dang-- hey, let go! Stupid mutt!" Ford starts to warn his partners in blocky justice, but Carnivac's sudden and very impressive grip on his dirt golem's arm distracts him as he growls angrily. "Stupid-- fine, you cur!" The dirt arm detaches itself, leaving Carni to his lame prize as the stump slams into the ground, before pulling out a chunk and reforming it into a new arm! Well, mostly a big mace hand, but still, a weapon all the same! Reaching back, Ford takes advantage of dirt's non-burning property to grasp a tree that's on fire, ripping it from the ground. "Fetch, boy!" he yells, before slamming the burning tree into the giant wolf. Shockwave doesn't answer any of Skids's questions. He and Grapple are coming with him and that is all that matters. Once the three reach the cortical deep-reader on the hill, the Seekers lunge forward, trying to grab Skids and Grapple by their arms. Shockwave turns the face them, "You should have listened to your friend's advice," his optic flashes, "This world is not what you think it is." He gestures at the Seekers, "Put them in." The Seekers try to wrestle Skids and Grapple to a dataport each. If they get there, it's a simple matter of attaching a nasty looking hook to the back of their heads. If that happens, then Shockwave will be able to begin the mind extraction. Grapple is not quite attuned for battle. In his other life, he may be a trained Autobot, but here, is he simply a builder. And what do builders do when confronted with a problem? They either build things or... ...They start screaming. Which is what Grapple does, swinging his arms wildly at the seekers while he does so. "Shockwave, what are you doing?! Aaaah!" "Kre-OW!" Skids yelps as the Seekers pull his arms and they come off. "By the playset!" His arms try to wriggle free as he kicks at the knees of the Seekers holding them. Trivia's house is quite nicely constructed, if a bit eccentric. It leans a bit towards 'modern secret evil lair', to be honest. He has a shark pit, but the LEGO sharks are all very nicely cared for, with plenty of room. Throwing his broom off to the side, Trivia gives the sharks a hit of studs for food, which they eagerly gobble up. Then he presses into a secret room of his house: his Kanohi mask collection, relics of his time on Metru Nui. There's Avohkii, the Mask of Light, gleaming in gold. Kraakhan, the Mask of Shadows. Rua, the Mask of Wisdom. Jutlin, the Mask of Corruption. And finally... Tryna, the Mask of Reanimation. He takes a good, looking moment staring at his mask collection. The masks fit Matorans and Toas, not minifigs. He can't even wear them, not without some serious personal remodeling. Looking at the masks too long always stirs some uncomfortable feelings in him, like when he saw Carnivac and Shockwave... /attacking/. Sometimes, Trivia almost feels like he remembers something... something important, but he always shoves those feelings down. Memories are dangerous. The doors of his house are left open behind him. "Oh look, he's branching out." Carnivac can still crack horrible jokes even as he's being swung at with a tree. Which shatters into the bricks composing it upon hitting his shoulder, leaving a few plastic leaves wedged in the cone-spikes of his brick pauldrons. "My turn!" Carnivac rears up, dropping the broken arm from his mouth and... grabbing it in his forepaws? They work like hands? Well they do now. For no other reason than wanting them to; the lack of logical thought combined with knowing this was a dream was putting considerable power in the grasp of a deranged mech. What was Shockwave thinking?! ... Fortunately all Carnivac does with this 'power' is use the golem's broken arm as a club to swing at the rest of it. "AYAHAHAHA QUIT HITTING YOURSELF!" Shockwave of course did not recognize this Trivia mech, but then there are plenty of Autobots out there that he's never seen before. His presence is not further analyzed. Unmindful of Skids and Grapple's cries of betrayal, Shockwave paces back and forth while the Seekers hook up the data-jacks. This is done by ramming the hook into the back of their heads. "This cortical scanner will allow us to extract data from your neural net," Shockwave explains with complete patience, "Not the false neural net of this world..." he gestures at the surroundings with his gun arm. "But that of the real world. Iacon's secret access points, Metroplex's security codes, troop movements across Cybertron, supply lines from here to the galactic core." Shockwave turns to face Skids and Grapple. "You may not survive the procedure, but it is a risk I am willing to take." Skids' painted face-block changes expression from :) to :/ as he intones, "Of course you know, this means war." Grapple is, in this plane, a Kreon. And, in Kreocity, limbs fall apart and pop off with regular ease. So, having something rammed in to the back of his head is, while very uncomfortable, not a complete horror. Still, he stares at Shockwave with the deepest, saddest frown a Kreon could possibly have. "...I thought you were my friend." Betrayal! Ford's dirt golem is knocked back hard and hitting the ground behind him, nearly landing in the wildfire. Ford flailed as he tried to regain his footing, still repeating that line to himself. "Think outside the blocks... outside the blocks... outside the blocks...!" Ford had no clue what it meant! But they were going on about it earlier, so it had to mean something! Ford righted himself and his golem as he looked about. He felt a sense of... familiarity return to him as he began to scan the terrain. Something instinctive. But all he saw was land! And the hill Shockwave was on! Wait... wait a minute! That hill... it was made of... and so was the ground he fought on! Everything well within reach! All of it... dirt blocks! "...think... outside the blocks!!!" Ford smirked as he stomped his feet into the ground, hands following suit. His arms and legs moved forward, gathering more and more dirt blocks, the blocks stacking up ever more... until finally, Ford stood in command of a HUGE dirt golem; it's composition was hardly worth noting, but it's size... let's just say, now the TFs knew what a human felt like when facing one of them! Peering down grumpily at Carnivac, he wound a giant foot back. "Bad dog!" he yelled, before bringing it forward to kick the blocky wolf away. Trivia is busy staring at his masks and feeling vaguely unsettled while Grapple and Skids are on the verge of absolute horror. How completely unhelpful! He reaches out for Rua, Wisdom, hesitating to touch it, and he catches his reflection on the chromed surface of Avohkii, Light. He stares. Trivia frowns, "That... doesn't look like me," he says of his reflection, but then, there are very few surfaces that are really-shiny-rflective in KRE-Oland. Chromed pieces are usually rare chase pieces. How often would he actually get a chance to look at himself? But that... can't be him, can it? The bodyplan's not even right. Jutlin, Corruption, seems to wink at him. Trivia takes a step back, his painted frown very deep indeed - when the ground starts to rumble. He rushes out of his house, looking for the source of the earthquake - and he runs smack into one of the patrolling Seekers. Another memory tugs at him. Skids' head shudders, gets orange, then red, then redder and you can even see real steam coming out from the neck-peg, until it pops right off and jets up into the air, pulling the cable along eith it as a tether. His armless, headless body starts running around like a primitive headmaster with no Nebulon. The saddest, deepest stare may make some of the worst Kreons in the Kreo-O universe's heart melt, but not Shockwave. "War has been the case for some time," he states simply. "Do not struggle against the scans... it will merely lower the odds of your survival." This may or may not be a lie, but Shockwave certainly doesn't seem to care for the wellbeing of his captives. Glancing down the hill, he sees that Ford has BLOCKED UP. "Carnivac, are you able to deal with the fleshl-" *POP* Shockwave glances up at Skids's head as it again goes flying away. One law of physics at least seems to be the same in this world as in the other: the Doppler effect. The head of Skids makes a whistle that gets lower and lower as it flies up and away, then higher and higher as it comes back down, down, down, landing--right between the shoulders of Ford's half-finished golem. It moves its firebrick arms up, adjusts its new head so it's on right, and then asks, "Hey, nice. Mind if I borrow this for a while?" "BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!" Carnivac drops the makeshift club as he rolls with laughter. "It's like knocking down a wall. Ahahaha--wha?" Then the much bigger golem that rises up instead. "... I think he's starting to get it. Unfortunately." Oops. Which is followed by a *WHAM* as Carnivac is kicked, sailing in a low arc before landing at the base of the hill, pieces scattering or collapsing into a pile. After a moment the top of the pile rattles around, and then falls down the sides as kreon Carnivac pulls himself out to stand on the heap. "Actually, I'm not so surprised the squishy is catching on. They're almost as insane -as a race- as I am!" Despite the smashing of his constructed 'shell' Carnivac is smiling as usual. He grabs what was the construct's launcher, holding it up high. "This here is my boomstick!" Daa daadaa daa daa daaaaaa~ He then cradles it with one arm, and hits the trigger with his little clampy fist. It fires its spring-loaded missle (how'd it get one back anyways) at the golem! "Yahahaha!" And sends the laughing Carnivac tumbling down the back of the pile with the recoil, too. Carnivac flips up from his grinning mecha-wolf mode into his manic robot mode. Skids and his new body are knocked back and onto his, um, bedrock before he can even react. Skids stands slowly up, brushes the smoke-colored blocks off his big lunky body, and looks down--through the big new hole in his chest. "Whoops, guess I broke it already." Trivia is dragged, kicking and pathetically screaming, by the Seeker that found him to Shockwave's device. The cowardly Autobot is having a panic attack, it would appear. Being made of the dirt blocks, the golem does not take the missile well. But that's hardly a concern of Ford's anymore now that he's handed control of the dirt golem to skids. Ford, in the meantime, slides down the back and landing close to the wildfire still raging in the back. Rushing closer to the base of the hill Shockwave is on, Ford draws his bow and an arrow, knocking it into place and pulling back. Taking aim, Ford lines the shot up at Shockwave as he shouts. "I don't know who you guys are! Or what you're here for! But I do know this: now that you're here, you've lost the advantage!" Has Ford finally gotten the idea Shockwave's been spouting? "Nobody escapes my impeccable sights!" ...not entirely, but Ford can feel something in him urging him onward, telling him what to say. It was a lucid feeling, almost. Ford released the arrow and let it fly... not for Shockwave, but over him, aimed right for that device he's set up! Something just screams to Ford that whatever they're doing here, it's got to do with that machine. Destroy it, and they might just turn tail and run! Carnivac sits up where he landed, grabs his backwards helmet piece and turns it around so it's properly facing again so he can see. Just in time to see the Seeker dragging the flailing Skids redeco. "Ooh ooh, I wanna help." Like an overly eager child he bounds over to grab one of Triva's arms to help. .. Wait, that thing is still up? Shoot. He forgot those missiles don't actually explode here, they just knock stuff apart. Skids starts trudging, slowly as the hills, back to the giant ring his original body is still running around. He turns his head to notice Carnivac and his (all right, purloined) rocket launcher. "Hey, careful with that thing. It's not a toy." Shockwave steps over to Grapple, "Hold him down. Ensure his head does not flee!" he orders a Seeker. Shockwave never considered he might have to give that order about someone that isn't a Headmaster, but this world's rules are not particularly sane. They grate on Shockwave, but fortunately he gets good news soon enough. "Got another, boss!" the Seeker proudly says. Shockwave steps up to Trivia. "Ah, a replacement for our escapist. Put him in the machine!" As the Seeker drags Trivia off to a free data-jack, Shockwave follows. "Name and rank, Autobot." Before he can get a response, a blocky arrow suddenly hits one side of the hexagon and gets stuck on. The hexagon sparks ominously. Shockwave whirls about, instantly finding the cause of the assault. "It is clear Carnivac you are unable to restrain the human. I will take matters into my own hands." Shockwave takes two steps down the hill before hoisting his bazooka onto his shoulder. "You merely endanger the lives of your friends, fleshling!" Ka-blooie! A 1x1 Kre-O block goes flying for Ford Benett! But this is no ordinary 1x1 Kre-O block. It is a highly *explosive* 1x1 Kre-0 block! Also it is red. Carnivac looks at his launcher. Looks at Shockwave. "Well it ain't my fault you took the one that actually explodes!" Smiling and laughing the entire time. Grapple still generally has the saddest expression on the face of Buildplanet. Or whatever the planet is called. If he's afraid at all, it's masked by the sheer BETRAYAL on his face. But then something explodes! And he struggles again! ... Poorly so, most likely. But he flails and tries to get someone's attention! He even kicks up some single dirt flats at the seekers! "T-t-t-trivia," Trivia stutters as the Seeker yanks off his helmet piece and starts to work on securing him to slot him in. "...p-p-prrivate?" There is no Autobot named 'Trivia', if the DecepiKREONS later take some time in the real world to check it. Or rather, no Autobot named 'Trivia' who is both alive and has this particular body-shape. There are three dead Trivias (Klo, four million years ago, Hydrax Four, seven million years ago, and one just recently at Magnaron, only three thousand years ago; all the good names are taken, and this goes for the bad names too). There are two live Trivias, one assigned on an Autobot front in the Spiral Arm, who transforms into a minisub, and one in Iacon, who is a railcar. "Should that device be sparking? I-i-i-I don't think so. And uhm, I am just a bit... a bit, mind you, unsure how you, ah... are even managing memory access without administrator permission." Wait, what? Skids, his head mounted on the ungainly golem body, lumbers up toward the device, shaking the studs of the baseplate as he knuckle-walks along. Another arrow flies from Ford's bow, aimed right for the explosive block Shockwave has lobbed his way. Ford had hopped he could use it to make a bomb arrow... that merely detonates it prematurely and closer to him than SHockwave. Flying backwards and slamming into the ground, Ford got back to his feet slowly as he glared at Shockwave. Why did he keep calling him 'fleshing'? What was that, anyways? Ford looked up at his two allies still trapped in the machine, with Skids only getting up there slowly! But it was fine... so long as Skids could handle that device and get them loose... he just had to keep Shockwave busy! But Ford was not the fastest. Agile and deft, yes, but speed was his need... His hand moved once more fueled by instinct, bringing it to his mouth and placing the ends in, letting out a whistled tune. A loud whinny suddenly greeted his ears as a blocky horse spawned behind him and galloped to his side. Something felt... familiar about saddling up. Facing down Shockwave, he gripped the reins as he smirked, tugging back as the horse reared back. "Now, Shadowhax! Show them the meaning of haste!" he called, before taking the horse in a circle around Shockwave, drawing another arrow, this time a WATER ARROW in the hopes the added water element might have some effect on the DeceptiKreon. "Well this isn't going to do so close to the machinery." Carnivac tosses the launcher over his shoulder with a shrug. But that hardly means he's without options. This entire world was a playground as far as he was concerned. You just needed the right... spark... aha." Grabbing some pieces of what had been the bigger constructed body and putting them together, he makes some sort of walking.. drone... thing... hey, it's building blocks, even knowing it's a dream he can only go so far on his madcap ramblings. It's hinged legs start wobbling buglike towards the Skids-golem and try to push him away from the machines. "Oof!" says one of the Seekers that gets dirt in his face. Blocky dirt /hurts/. "Awwwww QUIT MOVIN'!" The Seeker goes to punch Grapple in the head. That's probably not good when extracting data from one's brain. A second Seeker glances at the monitor as they read Grapple's brain. "...this is all just Kre-O instruction booklets!" With Shockwave having to deal with Ford, another Seeker comes to make sure Trivia is hooked into the machine. "Trivia, eh? That's a stupid name!" one Seeker says. Another scratches his chin, "Yeah, but think about all the juicy information, or... 'trivia'... he might have." The Seeker does the finger quotes. "Administra-whazzits? Bah, lets jack him in!" The vicious looking hook is rammed through the back of Trivia's head. Shockwave meanwhile would fire another Kre-O brick at Ford, but the launcher only came with one. Shockwave glances around to see if there's another he can fire, but most of the material has already been used in the construction of the cortical deep-reader! Ultimately it doesn't matter as Ford escapes on Sh@d0wH@X, who starts circling around the huge device. Shockwave tracks him, trying to get between the device and Ford, but the water arrow puts a stop to that. The arrow hits Shockwave dead on, exploding in a flurry of smaller water blocks! Shockwave is knocked on his rear. His adorable, bricky rear. Grapple actually manages to look affronted at the seekers. He opens his mouth to say something, but is promptly punched in the head. For a moment, his eyes simply spin, taking on the apperance of whirling 'at' signs. @_@ Then, he goes back to struggling. "Those are not -instruction booklets-, you philistine! They are the building bricks of our civilization! No non-builder can possibly understand!" Skids wheels around on his ungainly body, to face the opposing force, rock him and sock him. He swings a giant, blocky fist at the other's head; at least his own is a much smaller target. Trivia tries to plant a kick on the Seeker trying to wrestle him into the machine right where his 'pants' join to his torso. Then he tries to grab the head off the Seeker to jam /that/ into the slot instead. Trivia's painted optics narrow, and he giggles, "Why do we not see what /you/ know about this violation of /my/ code, hmm?" Ford continues to circle on Sh@d0wH@X, bow at the ready as his arrow strikes Shockwave dead on. Ford's smirk widened as he rode on, arrows flying for the Seekers as he fired them off. Taking a good round-about look at the machine, Ford could gather it's purpose; somehow, when plugged in, the thoughts were revealed on that screen. But Shockwave said that damaging the machine might hurt the others. Somehow, he had to avoid that too... god, being a good guy is hard! Ford decided he had two options at the ready; destroy the machine's link... OR the method to view it! If they couldn't read the information, why get it? If all else failed, he could destroy those cables and sever the links, right? Ford fired off another WATER ARROW at the monitor, hoping that dousing the machine would short it out. That's how machines worked, right...? While Skids and the cobbled together drone-thing play rock'em sock'em robots with each other... wait, where did Carnivac go? While Trivia is giving the Seekers trouble the manic hunter sidles up behind him... Attempts to grab the back of Triva's head and smack him into the machinery to daze him. "Sorry I've got terrible bedside manners" Unhingled cackling follows. If Skids is paying Carnivac any mind, you can't see it on his absurdly under-proportioned head as he knocks the other golem's block off. "Hey, Grapple, could you, uh, maybe help me fix these golems before Ford notices they're broke?" He's gotten close enough that he can bring down his fists to pound the ground next to the Seekers holding the prisoners down, and maybe give them a good shake. Grapple just kind of stands there for a moment as Skids punches the seekers down. Looks like he's in shock for a few seconds. Then, he hesitantly brings his only good hand -- the other is a tube! -- up to the plug on the back of his head. "Is it safe to take this out..?!" Skids shrugs with his giant shoulder-berms. "Ask the guy with a hexagon on top. He built it." The Seeker tending to Grapple (the one that didn't punch him) leans in close to the monitor. "...attach a 2x4 thin blue piece to a 1x4 thick red piece? There's step-by-step pictures and everything." He looks at Grapple incredulously. "Serious?" But then Skids arrives, and the Seeker has to turn and flee his blocky theoretical rage. The Seekers tending to Trivia just laugh at his attempt to kick them. "Your code? Ok buddy, whatever! Now lets see what juicy information you got. Come on, papa wants a secret supply bunker on Cybertron! Papa wants a secret supply bunker on Cybertron! C'mon!" Then, oh s-, water blocks hit the monitor, and it starts sparking violently! "Hey, what's the big idea!" the Seeker shouts at Ford. Shockwave meanwhile clearly has no intent of letting Ford continue his reign (or... rain?) of terror. There's lots of water blocks around him now, and so Shockwave grabs one (you can do that, y'see) and stuffs it in the bazooka. Ka-blooie splash! Then another! Ka-blooie splash! And another! Ka-blooie splash! Ka-blooie splash! Ka-blooie splash! Can Sh@d0wH@X swim?! Grapple somehow only manages to look SADDER at the mention of Shockwave. Slowly, carefully, he pulls out the plug. Pop! ...And then stands there to make sure nothing went wrong. "Uhm..." Well, he's not in pain or dead, so that's something! "...Okay." He then picks up his helmet and shoves that back in to place. "Why did Shockwave do this..?!" Oh, he looks ready to cry now. He looks around and... Spots Shockwave! So, Grapple grabs something random off the floor and heads towards the purple kreon, a look of determination on his brickish face. Trivia hisses at the Seekers mandhandling him, "I do not think you quite understand the situation you are in. Minus nine." The DeceptiKREONS shouldn't be able to do what they're doing. He's pretty sure that there are safeties in the code to try to prevent this sort of thing. They must have changed something... wait. How does he even know these things? His head hurts. Ford feels water blocks splash him as Sh@d0wH@X begins to slow down a bit. The water was certainly slowing down the horse, but... wait... Ford began to feel himself actually slip from his holding in 'reality'. Something was calling him away as he began to just vanish in the middle of the fight! No... not now...! Ford had precious little time to act. Turning his bow skyward, Ford began firing off arrows, multiple bunchs at a time. Ford finally found himself unable to fire anymore. His arrows were exhausted, and even if he had more, he couldn't hold them. Ford watched his world simply fade out, much like he did. Sh@d0wH@X, left without a rider, galloped off directionless. Meanwhile, the arrows Ford had launched were finally coming down, digging themselves into the machine and whatever else happened to be unfortunately in the way... Skids's earth-brick body is melting under the rain of water arrows, melting. "Hey, could somebody find my body? Please?" Shockwave finds himself having to run between water arrow impacts as they smack against the ground all around him. Only Shockwave's hyper-fast calculations protect him from getting smacked by another. He's able to figure out exactly where they'll land the moment Ford fire them, and then dive to safety. As he picks himself back up, he sees that one of his Seekers has been rudely deleted from the dreamscape! "Impossible," Shockwave states. Then his gaze falls upon Trivia. "Unless... hrnnn, Decepticons, fall back! We will review the data we've required from Trivia and plan our next move." Suddenly Shockwave couldn't care less about Grapple's brain. Grapple takes long, purposeful bricky strides to Shockwave. But then he dives away and calls to... Retreat? To run? This only makes Grapple start to run, holding up... A flat piece paper block? With writing? ...Oh, it looks like his building license. He waves it around, as if it were important. Carnivac has started laughing again, mostly at Grapple having an emotional fit over Shockwave being himself instead of nice blocky Shockwave the Builder. "Ahahahaha! We broke -his- dreams -literally-! Sucks to be him." Manic cackling keeps up, until Shockwave calls for a retreat. "Aaaw, already? Oh well, time to leave this blocksack world for the waking nightmare." A few more giggles escape as he bounds off after Shockave. Autobot Message: 3/133 Posted Author - Deleted - Thu Jan 10 Skids ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skids is mumbling, in a half-online mode right after his recharge cycle, apparently not even realizing he's sending this to the whole faction and not his mailbox. Note for later: new idea, public relations. Simple entertainment for the human larvae. Animated movie, everyone's those little blocks, what're they called? Shockwave's the villain, maybe get Brawn or Sunstreaker to do the voice? I could be the hero, heads popping off everywhere, Gears tied up in a brain-sucking machine, I'd ride to the rescue--nah, need a better peril than that. Wait, is this going out to--delete, delete!